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In all my years of writing and helping legislators create better laws to safeguard trafficking victims, this is the first time that it blatantly was political. Human rights should never be political, and language is important. We use the term "Prostituted Children", because statutorily, the term child prostitutes, does not comport with the Federal Law that There is no such thing as a child prostitute.
Read the Gazette Editorial, Feb 21, 2024: House Democrats kill the bill against raping children
Opposition to this bill succeeded in arguing that holding adult buyers of children accountable will harm members of the LGBTQ community and also children who need to sell sex to survive.
This bill was strictly about holding adult buyers accountable because we have no state or federal laws that do this. If an adult purchases a child for sex, no matter their race, creed, sexual identity, they are violating the law and should be held accountable. It baffles me that we are protecting them from prison sentences due to "Fear of them being raped or assaulted in prison." Which was a quote from Rep. Epps. She offered no solution or amendment to support the victims. Rep. Willford left as soon as the supporters testified and only returned at the end to vote no.
Most members of the LGBTQ community would not want to be used as a token or red heron in this argument because they know it's illegal and immoral to purchase a child for sex. It's wrong and unfair to state that we will not punish buyers who are the root cause of the demand into human sex trafficking, especially of children.
A child cannot consent to sex, and we should be giving them resources and opportunities to not have to make that choice. We should never normalize trauma and abuse for survival. This is not political, but unfortunately, my state just made it that way by dismissing the data and listening to arguments that are not what this bill was about.
This bill told child survivors and their families, "You do not matter to us and our priority is to protect predators." Colorado has lost its moral compass. Thank you to the media who is seeing this for what it is as well. Colorado is protecting child rapists. Plain and simple.